‘No, sir, I will not, and thank you kindly,’ said Oglethorpe. ‘At York they are. A very good lass is my wife—far too good for me. And the little rascal—well, I don’t know how to say it, but he sort of comes round you. If I were to go, sir, it would be hard on my poor girl—main hard on her!’ ‘Ay, you must feel bitter hardly to the rogue that laid you here,’ said Archer. ‘Why, no, sir, more against Engleton and the passengers,’ replied the guard. ‘He played his hand, if you come to look at it; and I wish he had shot worse, or me better. And yet I’ll go to my grave but what I covered him,’ he cried. ‘It looks like witchcraft. I’ll go to my grave but what he was drove full of slugs like a pepper-box.’ ‘Quietly,’ said Mr. Archer, ‘you must not excite yourself. These deceptions are very usual in war; the eye, in the moment of alert, is hardly to be trusted, and when the smoke blows away you see the man you fired at, taking aim, it may be, at yourself. You should observe, too, that you were in the dark night, and somewhat dazzled by the lamps, and that the sudden stopping of the mail had jolted you. In such circumstances a man may miss, ay, even with a blunder-buss, and no blame attach to his marksmanship.’ . . . THE YOUNG CHEVALIER PROLOGUE—THE WINE-SELLER’S WIFE There was a wine-seller’s shop, as you went down to the river in the city of the Anti-popes. There a man was served with good wine of the country and plain country fare; and the place being clean and quiet, with a prospect on the river, certain gentlemen who dwelt in that city in attendance on a great personage made it a practice (when they had any silver in their purses) to come and eat there and be private.